Let me start by saying that there is no way that I could do their jobs, even Kirby's in the dungeon. Their depth of knowledge is impressive. They do make mistakes, yes, but to do what they do for 3+ hours per day in sometimes difficult circumstances I have to take my hat off.

Their attitude to doping cases is exasperating in its apparent or wilful naivety. I don't want them to be like German TV but some more acknowledgment of what is going on and deeper analysis of the circumstances is merited. Their silence is deafening. I can not condone Harmon's response - or lack thereof - to this week's Kolobnev withdrawal. It is disgusting that he brushed it off after several seasons of singing his praises at the faintest sight of the Russian in a break or trying to make a move. I hope that Harmon is thoroughly ashamed of himself.

This is only one example but I don't want to dwell on this outside of the clinic.

Harmon is a hypocritical, xenophobic borderline racist bawbag. His attitude is pretty much 'wogs begin at calais.' Kirby's knowledge of cycling can be written on the back of a very small postage stamp.

Their cheerleading for anglophones is vomit inducing, and their double standards over clinic issues. (The Vino/Valverde LBL commentary).

Harmon thinks that 'emoting' is all he needs to do rather than any preparation. His commentary is basically, look for the Brit, Aussie, American and cheer for them, failing that look for the Sky, RS, BMC, Garmin, HCT rider and cheer lead for them.

He's arrogant, smug and ironically thin skinned when it comes to criticism.

Kelly is great - it is a shame we have to endure Harmon. I'd like ES to have a red button feature so I can mute Harmon and just listen to Kelly.

That said, compared to Duffield who sadly got a bit senile towards the end, and Statler and Waldorf, Harmon is the best of a bad bunch, which is a pretty damning indictment of the quality of cycling commentators.

Plenty thanks and I've already given them. As I've said before my opinion is based on having listened to him over a number of years and I don't keep a record of every stupid thing he says because if I did it would be longer than war and peace. If you like Harmon then that's probably because his view and your view of the world chime together nicely.

PR is a good example of him thinking emotion is more important than calling the race action.

However, I will credit him where this style was beneficial and where he did a mostly good job and this was on the Stage 4 of the Giro, although he blotted his copybook there with some fairly crass comments about DDL when it was neither then time or the place.

You came up with zero examples the last time you trotted out this drivel, and shock horror you'll come up with zero examples this time.

It's funny how often you bring out the "wogs being at Calais" line. I can only begin to imagine how excited you must have got when you realised there was a new thread for you to use it in. Maybe as excited as when you realise you'll get to make the oh so cutting "but I thought Anglo riders don't dope" line for the billionth time today.

Maybe that Paris-Roubaix commentary posted on page 1 is a good example of his "wogs begin at Calais" attitude. Perhaps he thought Johan Vansummeren was from Surrey.

Mrs John Murphy wrote:Plenty thanks and I've already given them. As I've said before my opinion is based on having listened to him over a number of years and I don't keep a record of every stupid thing he says because if I did it would be longer than war and peace. If you like Harmon then that's probably because his view and your view of the world chime together nicely.

PR is a good example of him thinking emotion is more important than calling the race action.

However, I will credit him where this style was beneficial and where he did a mostly good job and this was on the Stage 4 of the Giro, although he blotted his copybook there with some fairly crass comments about DDL when it was neither then time or the place.

hatcher wrote:Oh I see. So his emoting overrides his racism. Gotcha.

You came up with zero examples the last time you trotted out this drivel, and shock horror you'll come up with zero examples this time.

It's funny how often you bring out the "wogs being at Calais" line. I can only begin to imagine how excited you must have got when you realised there was a new thread for you to use it in. Maybe as excited as when you realise you'll get to make the oh so cutting "but I thought Anglo riders don't dope" line for the billionth time today.

Let's leave this one-on-one conversation right here, before the insulting match starts.

nesocip wrote:Haimar Zubeldia was never mentioned even when he was racking up Top 5 finishes in the Tour. Must be the most media underhyped rider of last 2 decades.

Im forced by geography to listen to Serbian Eurosport commentary for the last 3 years, and before that it was all Harmon&Co for me.

The Serbian guys were absolutely dreadful the first year, one of them an ex semi-pro rider who knows what cycling is about but just doesnt have what it takes to be a commentator, and the other dude a commentator with 0 clue about cycling. I dont need to mention that their rider recognition was next to none.

3 years later, and both of them have improved immensely. You cant call them good yet, but they are getting there slowly. They tell riders apart better then i do myself and they actually make those dull flat sprint stages more manageable with their commentary.

It just takes some research, a little brain and a lot of experience to become an useful cycling commentator.

Thats a great story. Must be pleasant to have seen the commentators learn and improve over the years. Learn more about this thing of ours and its riders.

The Father of Clean Cycling, Christophe Bassons wrote:When I look at cycling today, I get the impression that history is repeating itself: riders who are supposed to be rouleurs are climbing passes at the front of the race, and those who are supposed to be climbers are riding time trials at more than 50 kilometres per hour.

It's worth having Kirby around just for the occasional groaner he slips in. His bit the other day about riding over "Bob's Breakfast" (the 'Cold Croissant Robert') was cute, but even niftier was his signoff after Stage Three--"Farrar, narrowly snatching victory from the jaws of Feillu." Delightfully sly.

- Kurdyukov's voice and overall attitude is highly energizing, he can make curling exciting, let alone cycling
- he casually speaks italian, french and english
- during the long race he usually tells the history of every given church, village, castle, river, town, road, mill, lake or monument that the race passes by at the moment, often advising what to do and where to go to and what to eat if you want to go to this particular region
- of course his actual cycling commentary is great as well
- constant communication with the audience by twitter live
- each stage he calls someone to discuss the events of the race live (yesterday, for instance it was Ernesto Colnago, before that he spoke to Abdoujaparov) or to russian speaking Astana or Katyusha or Radioshack's DSs.

When watching english streams you get bored really quick and just simple commentary of just race events feels too bare for someone who got used to russian eurosport.

Kelly is brilliant. He is easily the most informative cycling analyst and I have listened to them all over the years. He tells it how it is and as others have said has no ego about admiting if he got something wrong. I also like the way he is happy to admit that cycing is unpredictable...that's why we have to wait for the finish!

I don't have a problem with the other two - it's kind of light entertainment!

I like Harmon when he's unbiased............but seriously- Kelly is very precised & spot on with his analysis--just happens that his voice sounds a bit raw to me-even after listening to him for many years......

I do love when Stephen Roche pops in--he's delightful to listen & very entertaining-hope he could do commenting for them more often....

Since the Spanish Eurosport isn't as good as it should be-I listen a lot Perico & Carlos de Andres from RTVE-even with their legendary "on-air" disagreements, they have a good show every time the tour starts.

Harmon's antics when reffering to Vinokourov during the Classics this year was quite amusing.

diggercuz wrote:second post ever after reading the forum for the last few years and one thing i must say, ACF94 is probably the most intelligent poster here, never biased to BMC or Cadel, and never gets worked up over anything.

Harmon certainly has his faults, notably the tendency to go "Whoooooaahhh ....!" whenever anyone attacks or "Oooohhhh ...!" if someone has a dodgy moment on a descent, even on the replay! His obsession with "bike handling skills" and descending prowess also gets a little tiresome (he obviously sees himself as some sort of expert in this field "being an mountain biker"). But he is pretty good at recognising riders, knowing their characteristics and interpreting what's going on, unlike many comentators.

Kelly is great as a counterpoint; knows his stuff, gives an unbiased opinion and doesn't fall into the "everything was better in my day" trap that a lot of ex-riders do.

Carlton Kirby irritates the hell out of me. He obviously thinks he's hilarious with his "amusing" anecdotes and lets us all know it by chuckling away at his own jokes. Plus his wheeling out of stock phrases "it's now or never", "there's a big push here", "the team is well-marshalled" etc. regardless of whether they apply annoys me mightily. If he's lead commentator on a race then it's almost enough to stop me watching it.

Harmon certainly has his faults, notably the tendency to go "Whoooooaahhh ....!" whenever anyone attacks or "Oooohhhh ...!" if someone has a dodgy moment on a descent, even on the replay! His obsession with "bike handling skills" and descending prowess also gets a little tiresome (he obviously sees himself as some sort of expert in this field "being an mountain biker"). But he is pretty good at recognising riders, knowing their characteristics and interpreting what's going on, unlike many comentators.

Kelly is great as a counterpoint; knows his stuff, gives an unbiased opinion and doesn't fall into the "everything was better in my day" trap that a lot of ex-riders do.

Carlton Kirby irritates the hell out of me. He obviously thinks he's hilarious with his "amusing" anecdotes and lets us all know it by chuckling away at his own jokes. Plus his wheeling out of stock phrases "it's now or never", "there's a big push here", "the team is well-marshalled" etc. regardless of whether they apply annoys me mightily. If he's lead commentator on a race then it's almost enough to stop me watching it.

But anything's better than P&P.

I enjoy eurosports commentating Sean Kelly is the most unbiased informed commentator around for me. Carlton Kirby is very enthusiastic and his knowledge of the sport he growing by the day, although he does say some cringe inducing stuff.

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it” - Max Planck